


A Friday Afternoon in Florida

by TramGirl



Series: March (Mini-Fic) Madness [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Alcohol, Caretaking, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Old Age, Unintentional Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 08:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10081589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TramGirl/pseuds/TramGirl
Summary: A 71-year-old Susan Pevensie-Collins is in retirement in Florida, with her young caretaker, Kate. It's afternoon, there are drinks and some reminiscing. Short, sweetish and for the 4th day of the March (minific) Madness, brought to you by a prompt from SMC.





	

Three o’clock in the afternoon, on the balcony. This is when I feel most alive. The warmth of the Florida sun seems as though it could bake any chill out of my bones and I sit, feeling mostly content in the warmth and the light. If I had any complaint to make, it would be that there is no one to tell all of this to.

Well. There is Kate. I don’t dislike the poor girl, but it is awkward to have someone about the house merely because your distant relations think you are too old to be left on your own. Hmph. As if I’m not used to being on my own by now. It’s been twenty years since Gerald died.

“Ms. Collins?” a hesitant tap on the glass door leading to the balcony.

I turn in my chair. Kate could almost be pretty if she tried to do something with her hair and wore some less ridiculous glasses. “Yes?”

She slides open the door “I’m going to have some iced tea, can I get a glass for you?”

“Not unless you add a shot of rum- if I’m going to desecrate tea, I’ll do it properly,” I retort.

“Ms. Collins you know the doctor said you shouldn’t drink,” Kate reminds me. She notices the packet of cigarettes on the table near me. “And-

“And despite that, somehow I’ve lived to be older than him, so I don’t think I shall be taking his advice. Thank you, Kate.” You are dismissed…carry on.

The glass door slides shut and I am left in peace. Somehow, I’ve lived to be old. Sometimes I still find that surprising. I’ve outlived the blitz, three siblings, a suicide attempt, an accidental overdose, a car-accident, two divorces, three husbands, and heart-surgery last year. I’d be an idiot to think that I’m unkillable, everyone dies eventually, but I feel as though I am remarkably difficult to kill.

If I believed in God, I’d say He’s given me plenty of second chances. But I don’t. I haven’t, since their deaths. Oh, I say since their deaths and sometimes I think it too, but in fairness, it probably goes farther back than that. How much farther, I don’t know. But I do know that when others, even my own family members, tried to explain what their ‘relationship’ with God was like, it always left me cold. All I knew was that there was a gap, there was something in my life that was missing, that wasn’t right, that couldn’t be right. I’d tried to ignore it, but then I thought I found a solution- attention. 

I’m old enough now to know that I tried to use attention as a solution. I wanted to be wanted, more than anything else. And for a while I thought that fit the bill and all was well. And then they died and left me and suddenly I couldn’t get past being alone like that. It was more alone than the space between boyfriends, a profound sense of loneliness. After the first shock, I tried to embrace it, tried to think of how free I felt, how I had no one to disapprove of me now. But that was only a temporary solution. There are parts of my life that I barely remember now- the parts when I thought I was having the most fun. It seems rather unfair that all I really have from that are some faded photos. And now, here near the end, I think, I still so clearly remember our silly games with the wardrobe. And it makes me miss them still, after all this time.

The glass door of the balcony slides open and Kate joins me, taking the other chair and setting our drinks down. I regard mine with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re out of rum now, Ms. Collins,” Kate informs me. “I took the liberty of spiking mine too. It is a Friday, after all,” she giggles nervously.

Friday already? How did that happen? But I smile at this unexpectedly adventurous turn that plain little Kate has taken. “To Fridays!” I hold my glass up for a toast.

“Fridays!”

I light a cigarette for myself and offer the pack to Kate.

“No, thanks,” she declines hastily.

“You don’t mind if I do?”

“No.” Whereas before, she looked reproving, now she just looks thoughtful. “You’re right- and you’re old enough to make your own decisions. Sorry if I seemed… condescending earlier.”

“Think nothing of it,” I say generously. “I know you meant well.”

We sit in thoughtful silence for a while, drinking our iced teas. And somehow, now, I find myself telling Kate all about our silly childhood games. She smiles and laughs at all the right places- and I’m shocked to find that it’s genuine… not forced interest. And when she does smile and laugh, her face lights up, and she’s not plain. It reminds me a little of Lucy.

I’ve just finished telling her about the adventures Lucy and Edmund made up when they had to stay with our horrible cousin Eustace Scrubb, so it’s a bit of a non-sequitur when I abruptly change topics. “Kate, have you ever worn your hair down?”

She blushes, poor thing. “N-no, I don’t like it getting in my face.”

“You could roll and pin the sides,” I muse. 

And that is how, not twenty minutes later, we are at my vanity and she has her pretty dark hair rolled and pinned on both sides. “Isn’t that nice?” I smile. “What about some jewelry? Earrings?”

“My ears aren’t pierced…”

“A necklace then!”

And I have just the thing! Lucy would have called it Narnian, but I think it’s a rather pretty gold necklace with bright lapis lazuli. Real lapis lazuli. I take it out of my jewelry box and carefully put it on Kate, fiddling for a moment with the awkward clasp. “There. That’s art for you.”

The smile on her face. I’m lost for words. But too quickly it’s gone. “I couldn’t possibly-“

“It’s a gift,” I insist. “Please, Kate? Just take it. It needs someone…” younger… “Someone like you to appreciate it. I don’t think I have a single relation who would. Take it, all right?”

**Author's Note:**

> Not a whole lot to say here, sorry it's shorter than I meant it to be. OId Susan is surprisingly hard to get a hold on. The setting for this is 1999, 50 years after the death of the other Pevensie siblings.


End file.
